The Republicans have a pope problem

The Republicans have a pope problem

IT WAS bad enough when Pope Francis began banging on about inequality. Worse still when he changed the church’s tone when it comes to addressing gay people (“Who am I to judge?”). Now the pope has issued a papal encyclical affirming the science of climate change and calling on leaders to phase out fossil fuels from the global economy.

This puts the GOP’s presidential candidates in an awkward position. At least five of them—including frontrunners Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio—are practicing Catholics. Messrs Bush and Rubio have both questioned or denied the science of climate change and rejected policies to regulate the burning of fossil fuels. And they are both from Miami, a place seen as especially vulnerable to economic damage from climate change.